


Stitched

by blank_envy



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: 2CT, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Body Horror, Ciel Phantomhive Has a Twin, Dark, Disturbing, Gen, Gore, I may write more about this someday, Manga Spoilers, My First AO3 Post, O!Ciel is called Astre, One Shot, Our Ciel - Freeform, Phantomhive Twins - Freeform, Poor Ciel Phantomhive, R!Ciel is fucked up, Real Ciel - Freeform, Sharing a Body, This is not a good time for O!Ciel, Twins, Undertaker is fucked up, Undertaker may be OOC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:14:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26451694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blank_envy/pseuds/blank_envy
Summary: All it took was a needle, a bit of thread, and the precise work of inhuman hands.Now they'd never have to be apart again.
Relationships: Ciel Phantomhive & Real Ciel Phantomhive
Comments: 4
Kudos: 84





	Stitched

Sleep-encrusted lids blink open, greeting the darkness of... he isn't sure where. Candlelight flickers, once, twice... growing dimmer as one of several melting wax sticks snuffs out. He's barely able to withstand the weight of exhaustion fighting against his attempt to stay awake. It plagues his mind, but even so, the idea of daring to return to unconsciousness sends a trill of panic down his very spine. It could be the heavy scent of copper in the air or the mysterious echoing noises he hears bouncing from wall to wall, but he isn't sure what exactly it is leaving him frantic.

Perhaps it's that he hasn't a clue where he has ended up, fleeting memories doing little to guide him.

_A voice... Promises of being together forever... Needles and thread..._

Ocean eyes lull to the side. Trying to remember more leaves his head buzzing, so he doesn't. Not yet. Not now.

He attempts to move an arm, stiff, tempted to take a look at his surroundings, but sharp needles prickle across every nerve. He expected himself to cry out, even as he tries stifling the urge, but only an all but silent groan slips past cool lips. It vibrates his chest, more thorns blooming against his skin. Shallow breaths do little to curb it.

Though hesitant given his state, fingertips twitch and, against his better judgment, drift down to graze over his chest. Bare, he realizes at first - and he should have realized sooner when a crisp breeze bites at him from all angles, whatever he is laying on at the moment being equally as cold. At least he does seem to have pants on, though he can barely feel them with the numbness in his limbs.

That isn’t what has him worried.

It’s what he notices next - the rough texture of a sloppily threaded scar running directly down the center of his body, all the way from his sternum down until it disappears into the hem of his shorts. Stitches dart along the length of it, keeping it tugged together, and it is clearly fresh given the way his body jerks just at the slightest touch, edges still rugged in healing.

His body has been _horrifically marred_ and he cannot remember how.

Mismatched eyes fight against the weights pressing down on them to widen in growing terror. _’W… what… is this…?’_ Unable to sustain the strain much longer, he drops his wrist down onto cold stone again, and his muscles ache. _‘Was I… in some sort of accident? Attacked? No… Sebastian wouldn’t allow that to…’_

Realization shoots down his spine in an icy chill. “Sebasti– _hck!_ ” Fire burns in his chest and harsh coughs wrack his body, stinging his lungs… but he doesn’t have time to waste on that! He needs to find—

_"Now, now. I wouldn’t do that if I were you, little lord.”_

His heart palpitates in his chest, startled. _‘That voice… It can’t possibly be…’_

”Undertaker…?” His words are hoarse.

Laughter bounces around the room, echoing off the walls. No denying it. From the shadows, the man himself steps into view, long grey bangs obscuring slitted eyes, much like when things were ordinary. He isn’t sure if he’d prefer it otherwise, considering the piercing, eerie chartreuse he knows is beneath. The dragging sleeves of his mourning coat cover his hands, and he sways on his heels, almost giddy. Delighted, even.

”You aren’t exactly in any condition to be screaming like that, earl. You might just tear open that pretty little scar of yours, and we most certainly wouldn’t want that.”

”Un… Undertaker…” With the knowledge someone he knows is around, the boy’s drive to understand what happened grows… though who it is leaves him unsettled, especially after how every other encounter with this man had gone in the past. “What… is going on…? How did… this…?”

The man’s grin almost sharpens at the question. “Ahah, you mean this?” One of his many long nails ghosts over the surface of the injury, the boy hissing through his teeth. “Do you like my handiwork, earl? I must admit, it was a bit difficult to patch you together, but I made do well enough. I suspect this will be sore for quite a while though. So sorry.” His apology almost manages to sound genuine, expression taking on a vaguely solemn air, but the younger is unconvinced, less so when his words sink in.

”Patch me... Do you mean to tell me you did this?” he demands, though his voice is not nearly as forceful as he’d hoped. If nothing, it sounded almost... vulnerable. Too uncertain.

Undertaker hums. “I thought I made it obvious.”

”Why...? What did you do to me?”

”Why, nothing your elder brother didn’t approve of. I’d say he even encouraged the idea.”

_’Brother…’_

Right. He was alive… No. _Brought back_ to life, as something less than human.

Everything that happened... The manor… The title of “Earl Phantomhive”… The servants…

Memories flood his mind; memories of the last time he had been in the company of the man standing before him. They’re unpleasant, and rather than relief at gaining them back, he’s filled with bitter resentment... Not just towards Undertaker.

”…Where is he? My brother. You can’t tell me he isn’t with you.”

Undertaker laughs. It sounds deranged. Uncomfortable. “Well, I’d say it’s a bit more complicated than that. He isn’t with me, per se; he’s with you.”

He wants to ask what it means, so desperately wants to understand what this sick bastard of a reaper is trying to imply… but he scarcely has any chance to when the awful truth reveals itself to him directly.

Something by his side shifts. No, that isn’t quite how to describe it. He feels the movement, but he hadn’t moved at all.

“Astre…” a soft _familiar_ voice mumbles into his ear, breathless with exhaustion, but sounding relieved – dare he say, content – nonetheless.

A turn of his head and there he is: Ciel, with his hair ruffled and a satisfied, almost pleased though he can’t place why, grin tracing his lips. Even in the dim lighting, he can tell the older’s skin is paler than it had been previously. He imagines his is the same.

Really, everything about them had always been the same, with little exception.

They had always been perfectly in sync, transcending above others with a certain sense of connection - a certain bond - no other soul could even begin to understand. Two halves of a whole, one being a mirror's reflection of the other...

...Though, one often found himself longing to be the contrary. The youngest, always considered as nothing more than spare to the true earl from the very day of their birth, wanted only to shed this distressing title. There was only one conclusion he had to come to, that which he realized with the most bittersweet of tastes in his mouth... His only worth would have to be found in carving out a path of his own, to find success where he could not find it within his family name, and to release himself from the cursed shackles of “Phantomhive”.

He never realized that even this opportunity would be stolen from him long before he had any chance to reach out for it. The relentless fire came and took with it both of the boys' futures, and he gave up his true identity for his brother to live where the spare should have died. Nobody would have ever been any the wiser. Never would have realized their satisfaction was a mere illusion.

Yet even now, after everything he’s suffered and fought for and after every sacrifice he’d made in the name of his family, he still lives in his brother’s shadow, his own achievements wiped away with one single, wretched truth. He never resented his older twin, not once during their childhood full of bias nor once during this time of pretending... He hadn't in the slightest, not until recently. Not until the backlash of betrayal he never could have seen coming. Not until the spiteful dead had been raised to wreak havoc upon his carefully weaved untruths.

Somewhere inside, deep down, it stings in ways he can't place. Even deeper, hidden away in the recesses of his mind, the vaguest feeling of guilt he will never acknowledge.

Now here this mockery of his brother is, staring at him as if he were still the ten-year-old trapped within the confines of a filthy cage, desperate for any sense of comfort in the dark world they had been cast into... Staring as if he hadn't matured and gone beyond any of the expectations anyone, even their own parents, had for him. As if he was, again, the worthless, sickly little spare.

It sickens him to the core.

His immediate instinct is to pull away, unable to bear being so near when all the wounds are still ripped wide open and all of the trauma is still fresh at the forefront of his thoughts, but pain flares across his body like electricity, relentless upon every tug against foreign pressure. Confusing as it is, his bewilderment reaches a peak, evoked strongly enough to give him pause, upon realizing his sibling's expression twists into discomfort with each attempt at resistance.

Something disconcerting begins to dawn on him.

His gaze flickers downwards, locking on to the split torn across his middle. However, that is not all there is to it, though he hadn’t been able to notice before. One entire side of his body is not his own, having been replaced with another; one so identical to his own, nobody else would ever be able to notice the difference. The seams and staples keep both sides threaded tightly together, inter-wound almost flawlessly, but running deeper than mere skin and flesh.

Eyes travel along with the mark, from below his belly button up to where it suddenly splits away at his neck, disappearing past his shoulder.

_’No.’_

There isn’t much of a shoulder there anymore. Instead, past the hideous gash, part of another body meets his own...

_’No… This... This isn’t…’_

From there, it leads up towards a smooth neck…

_’This can't possibly be happening...!’_

...up towards the true earl, who eyes his twin as if in on some sick private joke.

They’re both attached, forcibly conjoined by the stitches in some gruesome display torn directly from a freak show.

”Heheh… I think I did an excellent job,” Undertaker chimes, voice twinkling with undertones of mockery.

Panic swells up until it completely seizes hold of his chest, labored breaths seeping through his lips even as an icy hand – one he can feel shift but finds himself unable to control – settles against his cheek. Fingers dance across alabaster in a familiar soothing motion, but the intentions are utterly lost against the gripping tendrils of horror.

The corners of his vision swim, edges beginning to darken not unlike a collapsing film reel.

He hears only one thing before blacking out, hopefully finding some escape away from this twisted nightmare: Ciel’s voice, permeating above all other noises echoing through the empty chamber.

_“It’s alright, Astre... Now I’ll never have to leave your side again.”_  
  


**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first posted work on AO3! I'm really proud of myself for managing to post this. Social anxiety is such a bitch. Posted on FF.net and Quotev too!
> 
> I sincerely hope you enjoyed this disturbing little one-shot of mine! I might write more about this AU in the future since I really enjoy the concept, twisted as it is.


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